What Does Fellowship With God and Others Really Mean?

I wanted to understand the meaning of fellowship as presented in the Scriptures and sung about in churches. A song we sang in church when I was little was What a Fellowship, and I always wondered what that word meant, but I never researched it until the last few days. I was reading the book of 1 John, and in 1 John 1:3, it states, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” And 1 John 1:6 continues, “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” So, I wanted to discover what attitudes and actions constitute fellowship.

Google defines fellowship as a friendly association, especially with people who share your interests. But it didn’t seem to answer my question. As an evangelist, I sought to understand what fellowship means biblically and how not being in fellowship equates to walking in darkness or not living a righteous life. So, I looked in the Strong Concordance for the instances where the word is used and what the original Hebrew meant.

I decided that fellowship means unity, belonging, togetherness, loving concern, being like-minded, and sharing the same beliefs and truths from one Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Fellowship means a sense of oneness and sincere care and love for one another. It entails working together for the common good of each other, as well as for the planet and all people. It means seeing every person’s humanity as someone made in the image of God, whom we claim to love and whose love resides within us.

Fellowship, for me, is summed up in 1 John 4:20-21, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

Fellowship is without prejudice, judgment, and ideas regarding who is worthy of respect and equality of opportunity. It’s about learning what is right, just, and merciful. Fellowship is walking in the light, not in darkness, meaning in evil, wickedness, or in ways that cause harm to others, for 2 Corinthians 6:14b states, “For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” Fellowship is a way to demonstrate that you know and love the Lord God and Jesus Christ, in how we treat each other, particularly those whom we perceive as different, such as the stranger or sojourner among us.

Copyright ©
All posts on my blog, Help From Heaven, are my intellectual property protected by copyright. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.